H. RAP BROWN - AL-AMIN:
MEDIA'S RUSH TO JUDGMENT

By Yemi Toure, Editor
HYPE Information Service

      ATLANTA, GA. (March 21, 2000) - The major wire services are
releasing stories and pictures of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly
known as H. Rap Brown, in connection with a shooting incident in Atlanta
on Thursday, March 16.

      The media have picked from their files past violent portrayals of H.
Rap Brown, and connected him through "guilt by association" to the recent
violent incident.

      Your HYPE Information Service Editor, Yemi Toure, is in Atlanta, and
offers these cautions for you to consider.

      - - No witnesses have come forward to place Al-Amin at the scene.

      - - Atlanta and Fulton County police wrongly told the media Thursday
night that the warrant to be served on Al-Amin was for aggravated assault.
They now admit that the information they put out was false.

      - - The warrant the officers were trying to serve on Al-Amin was not
for a violent act, but for "failing to appear" in relation to nonviolent
charges.

      - - The officers knocked on the door of Al-Amin's grocery store in
the Black community of West End, and got no answer. They then drove around
the neighborhood and returned. Their confrontation with the shooter did
not occur on Al-Amin's property or at his nearby mosque, but on the street
next to a car that Al-Amin does not own.

      - - It is not the first time Al-Amin has been targeted by Atlanta
police since he moved here in 1976. The local press says there are 20
unsolved West End homicides, and Al-Amin has been tagged as a suspect in
some of them in the past. But Al-Amin has never been charged.

      - - The law officers have searched every single house for a number
of blocks around the scene. Little media attention has described these
massive, nighttime, warrantless searches.

      - - Al-Amin has never been known to be involved in a violent act
since he arrived in Atlanta.

      - - Al-Amin has been low-key for his entire residence in Atlanta. He
has not sought any publicity for himself that I am aware of.

      - - It is possible that the shooting was done by another person who
happened to be near the grocery store, and who had nothing to do with
Al-Amin. Media coverage is not allowing for this possibility.

      - - If Al-Amin is not involved, and with officers looking only for
him, the trail to the real shooter may be getting cold.

      - - The only person to place Al-Amin at the scene is the wounded
officer. This officer was shown an array of photos less than 24 hours
after major surgery, when he may have been under sedation and open to
suggestion.

      - - He is an imam, a religious leader in the Muslim community. If
you use the term "Rev. Jackson," it is appropriate to speak of "Imam
Al-Amin."

      - - At this stage of what we know, it is possible that Al-Amin was
not even in the city of Atlanta at the time of this incident.

      - - Al-Amin may be involved, or he may not. The overall tenor of the
coverage does not allow for both these possibilities.

      - - Hearing of the manhunt, it is very possible that Al-Amin is
willing to surrender, but only after his life is assured by cops now bent
on hunting him down. (c) 2000 HYPE, www.afrikan.net/hype

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